Every night in the other worlds I make sure I offer her flowers In the garden of our common stories My ancestors rest in no graves, Only in spirits of dignity and victory Our softness may crack any adversity, Reconcile strength with weakness, despair with audacity Even when you despise me Love is always mon fidèle companion, mon meilleur ami, moléma We are the women you’d call wild, untamed, savages, African natives in bondage, but my spirit is free It was brought to this body to be a light to these worlds, Sparkles and swirling blessings as I write those words And I have so much more to be thankful for My ancestors and I we cry silently, Our scars, bites of envy fade slowly Remind us our disappointments, We tuck the hurt deep down, down inside our ovaries Until it blooms back in sunflowers, roses and berries...

I am the daughter of freedom fighters and farmers Dark skin warmer than deep-down waters But cooler than Congolese summers Kinshasa-borne father and French mother Raised in the suburbs of Paris So excuse my French: my vernacular bloomed in the streets I am sure my ancestors moved carefully, Pack of wolves, they prayed for me eventually Before I could even think of them I am sure I am the product of brujas, ndoki The witches they failed to kill From Senegal and Angola, I exist somewhere between the Nile and Lingala Willing to be a revolutionary since my ancestor queens, I Am the rebellion in the memory of the memories I was drinking I am the product of the universe flair Arranging destinies, Assembling fate I am the result of stand-by turned into heartbreaks, Devotion of a woman that a man can never take That...